Perhaps you have been enjoying your DSLR very much and are curious if the shutter on your beloved DSLR has approached its life expectancy. Here are some information on how to find out the total shutter actuations.

For both Windows and Mac OS X users, the best tool to use is the ExifTool by Phol Harvey. Simply run the following command in a Windows command window or in Mac’s Terminal window (Replace MyPhoto with the photo file you want to get the shutter count):

exiftool -ShutterCount MyPhoto

ExifTool is a very powerful command-line utility. In Windows, simply drag and drop the photo over its default name “exiftool(-k).exe” and a console window will show you all the Exif information.

You can rename it to “exiftool(-k -a -u -g1 -w txt).exe” to get it to write the Exif information into a text file. This assumes that the shutter actuation count is actually recorded in the Exif.

Canon DSLR users may want to check out the utility program called EOSInfo (a Windows only program). Please note the following on the EOSInfo website.

The shutter count information is available *only* on Canon DIGIC III/IV DSLRs *except* the 1D* series. This means that EOSInfo will display the shutter counter for the 40D, the 50D, the 450D, 500D, and the 1000D. It will also show the shutter counter for the 5DMkII, but the camera must be power-cycled before the value is updated. The shutter counter will not be displayed (or will be displayed as “0”) on the 1D*, 5D, 10D, 20D, 30D, 300D, 350D, and 400D. It’s not that I have anything against the owners of those cameras, but simply that the Canon SDK does not support retrieving the shutter count for them. UPDATE (08/06/2009): Apparently, Canon has removed the facility for checking the shutter count on the 500D …

If you cannot seem to find the total shutter actuations of your camera, it is possible that the information is not there. The camera manufacturer may choose not to implement it, or it may be hidden somewhere in the camera but not written to the image file.

hi there…i’m really confused because i’m new in DSLR and mine is D80…. i just want to ask if for example my D80 shutter meets the average numbers of actuations which is 368,092.4, does it mean it will no longer work? or do I have to change the my whole D80???please help….

Hi odelio, Im allso new to dslr, just bought the EOS 50D. anyway when the shutter meets the average numbers of actuations that simply just means that you have to get a new shutter. it does not mean that you can just throw the camera away. But I dont recommend you changing the shutter by yourself, have someone fix it for you. Best regards

PhotoME is a free download that is SAFE. After you download it, go to any photo that you haven’t edited. Right click photo OPEN WITH……..select PhoteME, and you will see lots of data on the screen. In the 3rd group, look for SHUTTER ACTUATIONS & the number will be there. This programs beats the others hands down.

If you have a Flickr account, just post an UNEDITED photo, straight from your Nikon camera (don’t know if it works with Canon, etc) to Flickr and enable exif data. The shutter actuations will show as “total number of shutter releases for camera.” This does not work with photos that have been edited via Adobe products.

Thanks for the ExifTool + Terminal command. Worked like a charm. Shutter count on my D200 is 4110. What a shame.

Anyway, here are more detailed steps for Mac users only:
1. Take a photo with your camera
2. Transfer it to your computer
3. Place the photo onto your Desktop (for the sake of simpler and shorter location path)
4. Right-click the photo and choose “Get Info”
5. Copy the location path under “Where”; it should be something like “/Users/blah-blah-blah/Desktop”
6. Download ExifTool application
7. Run the installer
8. Once installed, quit installer
9. Launch Terminal application
10. Once launched and ready, type in the following command line: exiftool -ShutterCount /Users/blah-blah-blah/Desktop/title-of-your-photo.jpg
11. Hit RETURN button

Note that the Terminal command line is case-sensitive. Moreover, don’t forget any spaces, dashes, slashes. Blah-blah-blah is the name of your Home folder (whatever you call it). Title-of-your-photo is the name of your photo, ending in “.jpg” or “.JPG”. Makes a difference. Good luck!

Guys, on a Mac, there’s really no need to install anything… just open the DNG (raw) file in Preview. Then Tools > Inspector, select the EXIF tab and/or Nikon tab. Every bit of the data that’s in there is displayed.